Bobcat99

Orson at EDSBS linked here and made a quick reference to this issue today:

While Tampa police officers are still busy beating the hell out of USF fans for standing up in the stands and attempting to behave like football fans, we continue the hectic rundown of the weekend’s activities.

That guy was a lowlife.  I am not defending him killing the cop and his dog.  He obviously had other crimes to hide with that type of reaction to a routine stop from the police.  He is dead, so we will never know.  He deserved his day in court.  .

He didnt get his day in court becuase he failed to disarm himself when he was confronted by the swat team.

Really? You were there? Or are you taking the police officer's word for it -- the one who actually saw whether he was armed when shot or not. I thought this thread was about how bad law enforcement can be -- either we distrust them or we trust them. This nation was founded on distrust, and an ingenius system to get down to the bottom of things without having to rely on the single, empowered voice.

Anyway, you can't have it both ways. If we're going to turn the critical gaze to what's happened at Ray Jay the last two weeks, we have to turn it on what happened in Lakeland, too.

You don't have to graduate from a school to be an alumnus, but you do have to be male :-) So yes, Jenn is an alumna, I just don't get the obsession with her. She's NOT SMART. Anyone who's talked to her (and I have) or read her columns can see that immediately. I'm not even sure why we'd want to claim her as an alumna; let FSU have her, as far as I'm concerned.

You refer to "abilities." I am curious to know what these abilities are.

This is two weeks in a row that we have first-hand reports of the police acting inappropriately. I agree, we need to have our video phones ready to record any time we're in the vicinity of law enforcement. I've seen a lot of things the past two weeks that pretty much have me staying away from Ray Jay for the time being.

I can't believe you guys pay this close of attention to that vapid attention whore. You do realize we have women as good/better looking on our own campus, right? Ones who actually possess multiple brain cells and don't have enormous bags of saline in their chests?

Look.

Time Warner Cable (which includes Bright House) is part of the Time Warner empire. ESPNU and ESPN360 belong to the Disney empire. They will never get along, as they are direct competitors. If you don't like this, complain to your local Congressional Representative. They're the ones who have allowed the telecommunications industries to merge into such angry behemoths. Seriously, why should Time Warner pay ESPN to carry their channels? For their customers? If you wanted it that badly, you'd have switched to satellite by now. They have zero incentive to make money for their content competitor.

All we can hope for is a speedy area-wide FIOS rollout, as Verizon is considerably more friendly with the content provider world.

The students are too bummed out from getting arrested to want to actually go anywhere. Seriously, the undercover cops were out in full force, and pretty much slapping handcuffs on anyone they wanted to -- then letting people go a half hour later. It was bizarre. Anyone else see this going on?

If you guys can't figure out why the Overrated chant is stupid and contrary to the entire point of cheering for your team's excellence.. man, I have lost hope for this world.

Tradition doesn't mean it's a good thing. Look at Rock & Roll (Part II).

I've watched most of Rutgers' games and know they're a good team. The people posting smack here are really not representing our university very well -- I wish people here could be a bit more eloquent and mature, but I guess that's asking too much sometimes.

Athletically, we are stronger than Rutgers, Leavitt needs to figure out what coaching has to take place to prevent the mistakes that crop up in every single game. Rutgers is an AMAZINGLY disciplined team. They don't commit stupid penalties, they don't play dirty, and they are particularly apt at taking advantage of mistakes.

I think if USF can get a few early scores, we'll take the game. Unfortunately, early scoring has been in short supply this season. Rutgers' 2nd half defense has been phenomenal this year, and I don't expect it to be any different on Friday. USF MUST score early if we're going to win this game.

It's going to be a good game nonetheless, and I have utmost faith that we can pull this one out. I just worry that someone along the line is going to rough the quarterback, commit a stupid holding penalty, or something of that nature, and it'll cost us the game.

Rutgers is REALLY good, you guys. They're not the Buttgers of years past. Certainly, they're much better than Kansas. I hope we figure out what's gumming up the works this week, I want to see a good game on Friday.

You guys say "Rutgers hasn't beaten anyone yet" yet they've DOMINATED every team they've played. We have not dominated anyone, and we've played three awful teams ourselves. So maybe we should shut up and hope it's a good game. Frankly, having watched two Rutgers games from start to finish, I see a team that's both bigger and faster than ours.

I hear from people back home, whenever they see us on SportsCenter or in a bar... "What the hell is up with your uniforms? They look like you pieced them together from Salvation Army."

Seriously, dump the black logo, make it straight/bigger, and match the golds and greens. Our uniforms are among the worst in the country, and I hear it ALL THE TIME.

I am not a Duemig fan.

Yet I see his point.

The USF football program has basically taken a crap on the local media, and he's answering that by refusing to cover them. That's within his rights, and while it's not the step I'd take, I think it's reasonable.

Until Leavitt learns that you draw more flies with honey than vinegar, you'll see this at all levels of the media.

It blows my mind how inept we are at sports marketing at this university.

It doesn't make Duemig any less of an idiot, though. I just see where he's coming from.

Unless something major happens soon, there's no way we beat Rutgers.

Their defense is amazing.. and our offense, well, isn't.

Those are not RayJay rules, by the way.  No standing is for safety... not the comfort of other fans.  No cowbells is a Big East rule.

If No Standing is not a RayJay rule, how come I've never been to any college football stadium in my life that had the same rule? They stand in Columbus. They stand in Ann Arbor and East Lansing. They stand in Akron, Buffalo, and Muncie. They even stand in Kent!

Absolutely :-)

They could, problem is their opponents UNC, Illinois, Ohio, and Howard won't get them any extra votes as 3 are terrible D-IA teams and the 4th is D-IAA.

That being said Rutgers will have respect coming in. However I imagine several teams with one loss will be ahead of them because of SOS.

a) I wouldn't hand them a win this Saturday just yet.

I wouldn't call a team that just beat NIU worse than Ohio State did (and has a quarterback who, in the words of NIU coach Joe Novak, "was better than Troy Smith,") "terrible."

We're 2-0. We just handily beat the consensus conference favorite, in their stadium, by a large margin. We held dark horse Heisman candidate Wolfe to MORE THAN A HUNDRED FEWER YARDS than the mighty OSU defense did.

I'm not saying the Bobcats will beat Rutgers on Saturday, but it'll be a fight. Solich has our team in top shape this season.

You are correct, however, in saying that Illinois is terrible...

If Illinois plays like they're playing right now against Buttgers, I say we schedule them every season.

I'm with you.

I think the current decal looks CHEAP. The black doesn't go with ANYTHING in the uniform, and it's too small... and almost looks crooked.

I don't think anyone was calling for his scholarship to be revoked. We were simply saying that we, as the fans who fund the scholarship, have a right to expect a bit more as a citizen than a regular student paying her or his own way through school.

I guess I just don't hold the student-athletes up to any higher standards than regular students.

Really? Because the regular students are paying their own way for school, while the athletes go to school on YOUR DOLLAR. (And everyone else who buys tickets.)

 It has been scientifically proven that most people are impaired at a .08 breath alcohol level.

And it has been far more consistently proven that using a mobile phone while driving impairs a driver more than the most common levels of intoxication.

Furthermore, 65% of accidents are caused by individuals with over a .15 and there's no evidence (Freeman 2005, S. Levitt per a personal email to me) the .08 limit forced on states has had any impact whatsoever on fatalities, indeed, DUI fatality rates have remained constant since about 1997.

But you know all that, and I'm sure you know about the notoriously inaccurate nature of Breathalyzers in general, so I won't even bring that up. I would advise any diabetics or those on the Atkins diet to refrain from Breathalyzers, as even the NHTSA admits this.  Breathalyzers assume an average crit level that is in no way the same in every individual; women are particularly at risk of false positives since a machine that assumes a crit of 47% is rating at the very top of where the average woman would be (most women are 35-47% crit).

But again, you know all that.

If you truly think MADD is a terroist organization (like the PLO, HAMAS, IRA, or Al Queda) may I suggest AA?

"[...] activities designed to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence the policy of a government through intimidation or coercion,[...]" Title 18, U.S.C.

Threatening to withhold needed highway dollars for the implementation of a state policy is the very definition of coercion.

Look, I love cops, and trust them, so much so that I TRUST THEM MORE THAN I TRUST A MACHINE. Not to mention field tests allow the official to spend more time with the suspect and get a better bearing on his or her faculties. Unfortunately, due to being in a hurry, or whatever, it seems that it's "pull 'em over and get 'em to blow" nowadays.. it certainly has been in my case (and every time, I was stone cold sober... but read .02...)

Don't like it? Blame MADD, the most socially-accepted terrorist group in America, and the most successful.

Entirely because of MADD, the BAC threshold for DUI has slipped from .12 to .08 entirely through the federal government's extortion.

And they're pushing for .06, now.

Oh, I like the wave... it's just not a positive comment on what's happening on the field (indeed, is probably a distraction) and thus is something best originated by members of the audience. That's all.

i understand about not cheering when the offense is on the field, my whole gripe about doing the wave is that people who are doing it/trying to get it started, spend more time working on it and then watching it go around, then on the game and actually cheering on the team.  that stinks about the girl who blew out her knee, you all made it look good for being a last second thing.

For the cheerleaders' sake, maybe they should know the meaning and history of the wave.

The whole point of the wave is that it is originated in the audience, as a reaction to the utter boredom that is happening on the field. Thus, the wave should NEVER be initiated by the cheerleaders, as that's basically admitting that they're not accomplishing anything involving cheering for the on-field action.

Never in my life until last night have I seen cheerleaders initiate the wave. Not their fault, they don't know any better, but just something to keep in mind. The Wave is a "slap in the face" to the players, in essence: "Do something! We're bored."

(To know more, read "Human Waves in Stadiums" IN Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Volume 330, Issues 1-2, 1 December 2003, Pages 18-24 by Farkas, Helbing, and Vicsek.)